I got my gun out of the drawer next to the sink and pushed the clip in. When I was younger, I thought about it plenty of times. Just put the barrel in my mouth, pull the trigger, and paint the ceiling with my brains.

I used to think about it when I was lonely and miserable, but now it seemed like something I deserved. Except Wavy had said, “I’m dirty,” and I couldn’t stand for her to think she did something wrong. I didn’t want her going through life thinking she was so dirty I had to kill myself after she touched me. Whatever I deserved, she didn’t deserve that.

The temperature gauge at the kitchen window showed forty-two degrees. I’d let her run out into the night, wearing that skimpy dress with no coat, knowing she’d have to cross two highways and the meadow to get home.

I put the gun away and washed my hands. Then I put her coat and sweater in the saddlebag, and rode. I scanned the shoulder ahead for her as I went, but I’d waited too long.

At the farmhouse, the porch light was on, but the rest of the house was dark. I wasn’t brave enough to call her name, so I stood in the kitchen and listened until I picked out two clear sounds. Splashing water and a muffled hiccup.

I tapped on the bathroom door, and there was a hiccup followed by silence. There was no latch on the door and, when I pushed it open, it thudded against something. Wavy’s boots. The air burned when I sucked it into my lungs. Bleach.

I got down on my knees and crawled to the tub, saying, “I’m sorry, Wavy. I’m sorry I let that happen. That was all my fault and I’m sorry.”

I put my hand down and found her crumpled up dress. I couldn’t see a thing, so I reached for her, but she smacked my hand away.

“No one touches me. I’m dirty. I’ll make you dirty,” she said.

“You’re not dirty.”

“Dirty whore.”

“You’re not dirty and you’re not a whore.”

I couldn’t take the scrubbing, the sound of her feeling dirty. Even knowing she wouldn’t like it, I reached out to stop her.

She screamed and tried to shove me away, but I caught hold of her hands, and got the bar of soap and the washcloth away from her. Her arms were slippery, too hard to hold. She jerked one free and managed to punch me smack in the left eye. Lit up the whole inside of my skull. I been in bar fights where I didn’t get decked that hard, but once I had her tucked under my arm, she wasn’t big enough to put up a real fight against me. The water running off her soaked through my jeans and made the floor slippery. She’d been washing in cold water and bleach.

When I reached for the towel I knew was hanging behind the door, something sharp—Wavy’s knee—caught me in the kidney, almost doubled me over, and I slid into the wall with a thump.

“You kids quit making so much noise,” Val yelled from her bedroom.

I waited for Val to open the door, turn on the light, and find me wrestling with her naked daughter, but Val didn’t get up. She didn’t even call again. It boiled my fucking blood.

“You stupid bitch! I could be in here raping her! And you can’t even get your ass out of bed to come see what she’s screaming about? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

No answer to that.

While I was yelling at Val, Wavy finally stopped fighting me, and I got the towel around her as best I could. In the dark, I carried her up the stairs, expecting more darkness, but the moon lit up her whole room. Full moon. Did that explain what I’d done?

After I got Wavy under the covers I took the towel and dried her hair. She laid there shivering and let me.

“You have to talk to me,” I said. We weren’t gonna solve this with charades. “You’re not dirty. Why would Val say that?”

“Liam not to be trusted.” She always said it that way, like it was his name.

“What about him?”

“Sitting on his lap.”

“When?”

I knelt next to the bed, with the covers pulled tight over Wavy, but she slipped a hand out of the sheets and touched my arm. Then she found my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed back.

“Before I could read,” she said. “And Mama said, ‘Don’t touch her. That’s dirty! If you touch her you’ll go to hell! No one touches her!’”

“Did Liam do something to you?” After what I’d done, I knew I didn’t have no business feeling self-righteous, but this hot thing welled up in me. If Liam had messed with her, I was gonna kill him. Choke his fucking neck with my bare hands. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“What was he doing when Val told him that?”

“Reading to me.”

I tried to picture Liam with Wavy on his lap, reading her a story. I couldn’t manage it ’til I remembered even my pa did some nice things. Took me to a few ball games. If Jesse Joe Barfoot had a few days when he was a decent father, maybe Liam had some, too.

And Val was crazy as hell. The kind of person who could see her daughter on her husband’s lap and think the worst thing. Might explain why Liam never went near Wavy. If your wife accused you of doing something nasty to your baby daughter, you might think twice before you ever touched her again.

“He didn’t touch you? Not—” With her holding my hand like she still trusted me, my throat about closed up around what I wanted to ask. “Not in your private place?”

“No. She said he would, but he didn’t. She said all men would.”

“Wavy, I’m sorry I—”